


Later

by Davechicken



Series: The Pilot and his Dark Knight [13]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M, Non-explicit grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-13 00:31:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9097612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: We can't do it later. We need to do it now.





	

“What is it?”   


“We need to leave.”  


“What?”  


“Right _now_ ,” Kylo says, and grabs Poe’s hand.   


He drags him out of the bar, and into the night air. Everyone is still inside, toasting and saluting, and Kylo is paler than Poe has ever seen him. The moonlight wrestles with the sodium-yellow, dancing over his hair and skin, patterns of talking ghosts across the planes of him.

“You need to go home?”  


“No. I need to do… _everything_.”  


“What?”  


“Everything we said we’d do ‘later’. Said we’d do ‘when we get around to it’. We need to do it.”  


“Babe, you’ve been awake for at _least_ twenty hours. Pretty soon the only thing you need to do is sleep.”  


“Poe… I mean it.”  


“So do I. I’ve had a drink, and we can’t just… charge off into the night.”  


“So? Tomorrow you’ll have some reason not to. And then the next day, and then the next…”  


Poe knows where this is coming from, of course he does. Grief makes you aware of your own mortality, and the knowledge that you will end. It gives you a sense of finality, and a dread certainty that you’re no longer infinite. 

Death becomes the final note, and all the others run back on the clef away from it, cluttering up the tune.

“I’ve had a drink, so I can’t fly. You need to sleep, but if you’re serious about going through the list…”  


“We could _die_ , Poe. Filled with regrets.”  


“I wouldn’t regret. I’d know I’d been busy loving you.” He finds his husband’s hands, holds them close. “You’re what matters to me.”

“And… you are to me. I just… I…” The wind goes out of his sail, and his head drops. “I just didn’t want to wake up one morning and realise it was too late.”  


“Then take a moment, every day, to do something deliberate. Something good, and happy. So you know you used the day, and you know you lived it.” Poe pulls his hands up, brushes his lips over his knuckles. “It doesn’t need to be a big thing, but do something that made you glad you existed for it.”  


Kylo crushes against him, and Poe smiles into his neck.

“I love you,” Kylo husks.  


“I know. I love you, too.”  


A long, long pause. “This is today’s thing, just so you know.”

“I got that,” Poe laughs, but it’s a quiet laugh. “You wanna go home?”  


“Yeah.”  


“Me too.” He slides his palm to Kylo’s, and tugs him away from the noise.  



End file.
